On
Wednesday, July 27, Pope Francis arrived in Krakow, Poland, in order to
celebrate World Youth Day. As part of this trip, the pope commented on
controversy surrounding Muslim migration to Europe. Many of these comments
reveal an apparent ignorance of Polish history and current reality, a privileging
of Marxist and culturally relativist worldviews that distort reality, and an
abandonment of true Christian ideals. I write as a devout Catholic. I wish my
pope would read what I write here.

Western
Europe, typified by Angela Merkel's Germany, has encouraged mass, unvetted,
Muslim migration. Germany has openly acknowledged that it is doing this to fill
labor gaps created by its low birth rate. Too, Angela Merkel's "compassion"
is meant to wash away stereotypes nailing Germans to the nation's Nazi past.

England,
France, and other Western European nations also want to refurbish their brands.
They want to escape the image of themselves as arrogant colonizers of Muslim
nations, and be christened as certified tolerant multiculturalists. They want
to escape the image of themselves as Crusaders.

Poland,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have all expressed overt resistance to
mass Muslim immigration. Their resistance is expressed in unambiguous terms
that would render the speaker radioactive in Western Europe.

Western
Europeans, including, sadly, the pope, have addressed Eastern Europeans in
insulting and patronizing ways. They have completely ignored the history and
current conditions that affect Eastern Europeans' approach. Worst of all, they
have not said what needs to be said to Muslim migrants. Western European
arrogant posturing is making the migration crisis worse.

Eastern
Europe, long the poorer half of Europe, sees mass, unvetted Muslim migration
completely differently than Western Europe does. Concrete historical and
contemporary differences with Western Europe condition Eastern European
perspectives and offer a sobering corrective to Western errors.

Germany
has a labor gap it must fill. Poland has a high unemployment rate. Poland,
unlike Germany, was on the right side in World War II, so it does not face the
same need that Germany does to tinker with its image. Unlike England and
France, Poland never colonized any Muslim nation. Poland does not need to prove
it has overcome its colonial past vis-à-vis Muslims.

Poland,
aware of its own history, feels no need to certify itself as a tolerant,
multicultural nation. The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was, as Eva Hoffman
wrote in her book Shtetl, "a
long experiment in multiculturalism avant
la lettre." That is, Poland was multicultural before the term "multicultural"
was invented.

During
the Wars of the Reformation, Poland was a "state without stakes." For
centuries its population included Lithuanians, one of the last holdouts of
authentic Paganism in Europe, Arians, atheists, Jews, and others. Poland's
current religious and ethnic homogeneity is the result not primarily of Polish
choices, but of German genocide, Churchill and Roosevelt colluding with Stalin
to rejigger borders, and the 1968 Communist scapegoating of Jews. This is why
Poles become uncomfortable when Westerners, including the Pope, lecture them
about their need to be multicultural.

Further,
Poles did not significantly participate in the Crusades. In fact, Polish
Muslims fought side-by-side with Polish Catholics and Lithuanian Pagans against
Crusader knights, the Teutonic knights, at the Battle of Grunwald, one of the
largest battles of medieval Europe and perhaps the largest battle to involve
knights.

Eastern
Europe is the poorer half of Europe for a variety of reasons. One is that Eastern
Europe abuts the landmass of Asia and the Ottoman Empire. For centuries, Poland
has had to fight invaders for its very survival. Often those invaders were
Muslims. The Crimean Khanate and Al-Andalus made use of millions of Polish and
other Slavic slaves. Poles, under Jan Sobieski, famously played a significant
role in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at Vienna on September 11-12, 1683. Bernard
Lewis cites this battle as the end of jihad's expansion, and the beginning of
Muslim self-doubt, a self-doubt it attempts to correct with its current jihad. As
Lewis
wrote, "This defeat, suffered by what was then the major military
power of the Muslim world, gave rise to a new debate, which in a sense has been
going on ever since. The argument began among the Ottoman military and
political élite as a discussion of two questions: Why had the once victorious
Ottoman armies been vanquished by the despised Christian enemy? And how could they
restore the previous situation?"

All
nations have their favorite targets for ethnic slurs. When Poles indulge in
ethnic slurs, their targets have most often been Jews, Germans, Russians, and
Ukrainians – that is, their most significant immediate neighbors. Hatred and
stereotyping of Muslims has not traditionally been a big part of Polish
cultural baggage. In fact, Poles proudly mention that Muslims have lived and
practiced their faith in Poland since the 14th century. The Lipka
Tatars were invited into Poland and given the status of nobility. They served
in the military. Polish Muslims were granted autonomy, had the right to
practice their religion and to intermarry with Polish Catholics. They had
representation in the Polish Sejm, or parliament. These Muslims largely
Polonized, adopting Polish language and culture. Except in the 17th
century, during the Ottoman Empire's attacks, there were few reports of
conflict between these Muslims and Polish Catholics. Rather, Polish Catholics
tended to speak of these Muslims as an interesting part of the country's
history and evidence of the country's multiculturalism and tolerance.

Too,
during WW II and Stalinist population transfers, many Poles found themselves in
Muslim Central Asia. Typical Polish refugee survivor stories do not include
anti-Muslim stereotyping. One such Polish memoirist, Edward
Herzbaum, wrote a picturesque account of his time spent in Muslim Central
Asia:

"There
is a bright moon and some wind. As we stop for a few moments, the exotic
landscape is striking, like an intoxicating scent. The tall poplars wave and
rustle; the clay walls of the hovels are lit up brilliantly by the moon and the
small windows look completely black. Under some trees somebody is laughing or
talking in a gentle voice and then there is silence again, but it is full of
life. Everything which is dead in the heat of the day is now awake, a life so
lush and vibrant that it is difficult to describe. There is also the wind,
hungry and restless like a young animal, coming down from the mountains and
blowing above the fertile, fragrant valley. It runs amok and then it's silent
again."

It is
true that anti-Muslim sentiment is strong and often expressed in Poland today. Current
anti-Muslim feeling in Poland is a new development. Younger Poles are most
likely to resist Muslim migration, according to the Christian Science Monitor. This new hostility to Muslims and Islam references
current jihad actions and Western Europe's apparent inability to address them. In
spite of their history of being the targets of Crusader knights' aggression,
Poles have sometimes chosen the image of the Crusader knight to express their
current disagreement with Western Europe's migration policies, as did soccer
fans in Wroclaw, Poland, in 2015, when they displayed a huge
banner depicting Poland as a knight defending Christendom from invading
Muslims.

In
short, Eastern Europe is very different from Western Europe when it comes to
historical interactions with Muslims, and when it comes to the contemporary
economic and cultural forces affecting decisions about Muslim immigration.

If
only Pope Francis showed awareness of these realities. Instead Pope Francis
ignored both Polish reality and Catholic truth in his public statements. He told
Poles that they must "overcome fear and to achieve the greater good."
"Needed," the pope said, "is a spirit of readiness to welcome
those fleeing from wars and hunger, and solidarity with those deprived of their
fundamental rights, including the right to profess one's faith in freedom and
safety."

The
day before the pope traveled to Poland, Father Jacques Hamel, a French priest
in his eighties, was saying mass in his church in the French town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray,
France. Jihadis invaded his church, forced the priest to his knees, and cut his
throat, in accord with Koranic teachings (Koran 47:4, 8:12, 9:5). The jihadis
then used nuns as human shields in their escape attempt. The martyrdom of
Father Jacques was, of course, merely the most recent in a series of deadly jihad
attacks in Western European nations eagerly inviting Muslim migrants, attacks
that are steadily eating away at what one had thought of as normal life in
Western Civilization.

Under
such conditions, there is much that Catholics and others yearn to hear from a
leader of the stature of the pope. While traveling to Poland, the pope
acknowledged to journalists that a war is being waged.

"But
it's a real war, not a religious war. It's a war of interests, a war for money.
A war for natural resources and for the dominion of the peoples. Some might say
it's a religious war. Every religion wants peace. The war is wanted by the
others. Understood?"

This
Catholic shudders.

The
pope's statement that the current jihad is "a war for money" is a Marxist
analysis. The idea that wars are fought over markets and resources is entirely
Marxist.

The
pope said "Every religion wants peace." This is a statement of
cultural relativism. In fact, religions are significantly different, and not
all religions do have the same approach to peace. In Islam, peace comes after
submission to Allah, a submission that is achieved through violence. Violence
to spread Islam is the highest good. Paradise lies under the shade of swords,
says one hadith; another locates paradise in the space between an archer's
targets. To learn to shoot and to abandon shooting is a sin. Compare this
hadith to Isaiah's call for a day when we beat swords into ploughshares and
spears into pruning hooks. Koran 3:157 guarantees paradise for jihadis. There
are no parallels to any of these verses in Christianity.

The
pope also said, " The war is wanted by the others. Understood?" This
cryptic statement will be jumped upon by conspiracy theorists, all too many of
whom live in the Muslim world and use conspiracy theories to avoid
confrontation with Islam's failures. The "others", the "unseen
hands" who "want war" have all too often been identified by conspiracy
theorists as Jews. No, I am not saying that Pope Francis is implicating Jews
here. He is not. I am saying that conspiracy theorists eat statements like this
up.

One
must ask, though, who are "the others" the pope is claiming are
behind jihad terror? I don't know. I do know that such escape routes to honest
thought do nothing to help Muslims confront what they must confront.

Austen
Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, writing in Politico,
indicts Poland. Poles are "disrespectful" of Pope Francis. Poles had
built "walls" that they wanted to see maintained. Poles inexplicably
see Christendom as "beleaguered." This is a mere hangover from the
Communist Era. Poles are "nervous of contamination." There is a
"darker side" to Poles' worldview. "Polish Catholics suffer from
a superiority complex." But Ivereigh attempts to sound tolerant. "Polish
Catholics can be forgiven for thinking that their church has done something
right." But this attitude is "dangerous." Poland is "unsparingly
anti-immigrant." For some reason, Poles "harbor strong anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim sentiment and see a link between immigration and terrorism."
"Pope Francis, on the other hand, has called Europe’s willingness to take
refugees a test of its principles. God’s mercy – the theme of this week’s World
Youth Day in Poland, and the cornerstone of Francis’s teaching – is most
evident, he believes, in our willingness to embrace strangers."

Ivereigh's
themes of paranoid Poles still reeling from Communism who must be condescended
to by superior Westerners is all too typical of journalistic coverage of the
pope's visit to Krakow.

Most
grievously, the pope's and the journalists' Marxist and cultural relativist
approaches abandon the truths of the Bible. It doesn't take a theologian to point
out that the Muslim world is in deep trouble. Muslim nations dominate lists of
the worst nations on earth to be a woman, or a political prisoner, or a
Christian, or a homosexual. The UN Arab Human Development Report is an index of
the failure of the larger Muslim
world. Numbers on literacy, health care, research and innovation are all the opposite
of what anyone wants to see. Just one statistic: "in the 1,000 years since
the reign of the Caliph Mamoun, the Arabs have translated as many books as
Spain translates in one year." As Samuel P. Huntington wrote, "Islam
has bloody borders." Jihad-inspired armed conflict occurs throughout the
Muslim world, from Africa to East Asia.

The
pope, and journalists like Austen Ivereigh, prescribe Marxist analysis and
cultural relativism as the answer to these Islam-induced, or certainly at least
Islam-associated agonies.

Their
answer can be reduced to, "If sexually assaulting, imprisoning, and honor
killing women, murdering priests, suppressing freedom of speech and of
conscience, and committing suicide bombings is not working for you in your own country,
please bring them to ours, and we will welcome you with open arms."

They
are calling this approach "compassionate" and "Christian."

It is
neither.

True
Christian compassion calls for truth. Old Testament Biblical prophets never
spared the Israelites the harshest of truths about themselves, about their
mistakes and what they needed to do to mend their ways.

Jesus,
too, was not one to mince words. He told miscreants to their face, without offering
any verbal hiding places, what they were doing wrong and what they needed to do
to get things right. "Go and sell all your possessions and give your money
to the poor," he said to a rich man. "You have had five husbands, and
the man you are living with now is not your husband," Jesus said to the
Samaritan woman. Jesus fearlessly said to Pontius Pilate, the man about to
sentence him to a torturous death, "The reason I was born and came into
the world is to testify to truth."

It's
time for the pope and Catholic journalists and others to speak to Muslims – not
to Polish Catholics, an easy target but to Muslims – the way that Isaiah and
Jeremiah spoke to Israel, the way that Jesus spoke to everyone from a woman at
a well to Pontius Pilate himself.

Counter-jihad
is about truth,
not hate. We Catholics mourn the martyrdom of Father Jacques, but we know
he is in Heaven now. We have reason to assume that his murderers are in Hell.
We Catholics have a responsibility to speak the truths that will help our
Muslim brothers and sisters escape not just the earthly hells their beliefs and
customs have created, but also eternal damnation. It is time for the pope to stop
falling back on Marxist and culturally relativist interpretations. It is time
for him to stop patronizing devout Polish Catholics. It is time for him to join
the counter-jihad, and to speak the truth to Muslims out of love.

New Jersey "artist" Gary Wynans, aka Mr. abILLity, insulted Polish Katyn massacre victims in a recent artwork installed on a street in Jersey City, the same city where the Katyn massacre statue stands. Wynans also insulted police officers, depicting them as pigs. You can read more here and here.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Donald
Trump says sensational things that stir up the press and the people: that Ted
Cruz's father played a role in the assassination of JFK, that Heidi Cruz is
ugly, that Megyn Kelly is menstruating, that women who have abortions should be
punished. On the first night of the DNC, Trump tweeted a cryptic insinuation that
Cory Booker is gay.

By getting
away with saying crazy things,Trump expands his power. And he draws free
publicity to his campaign.

Recently
Trump said dangerous things about NATO.

NATO
is not as sensational as the JFK assassination or insinuations of homosexuality.

"When
asked by the New York Times late Wednesday if he would come to the aid of the
Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – if they were attacked by
Russia, Trump said he would only do so if the countries 'have fulfilled their
obligations to us,' marking a sharp turn from decades of American foreign
policy that has been a cornerstone of European security …

The
New York billionaire hinted while campaigning in April that if elected
president he would consider withdrawing the U.S. from the alliance. 'It's
possible that we're going to have to let NATO go,' he said. 'When we're paying
and nobody else is really paying, a couple of other countries are but nobody
else is really paying, you feel like the jerk.'

He
went on to say that he would 'call up all of those countries . . . and say 'fellas
you haven't paid for years, give us the money or get the hell out.' I'd say you've
gotta pay us or get out. You're out, out, out . . . Maybe NATO will dissolve,
and that's OK, not the worst thing in the world.'"

"DEREK
CHOLLET: U.S. commitment to NATO and our commitments to our European partners
is not an act of charity. It's not a gift that we give to our European
partners. It's actually part of our security, as well, and their security is
our security.

NORTHAM:
Derek Chollet is a senior advisor with The German Marshall Fund and a former
assistant secretary of defense. He says NATO members, friends and colleagues in
Europe are deeply alarmed about Trump's comments and worry about U.S.
commitments to the alliance.

CHOLLET:
Trump's rhetoric is undermining America's credibility, undermining America's
leadership and strength in Europe, even without him being president. The
rhetoric itself is very damaging. Obviously, if you were to try to implement
any of that rhetoric as president, it would be catastrophic for America's
interests."

In
the Washington Post, Michael McFaul explained in detail why Trump's understanding
of NATO is completely flawed. McFaul is former US ambassador to Russia, special
assistant to the president on the National Security Council, and Stanford
University professor of political science.

McFaul
points out that NATO

Is in
America's strategic interest, makes the world more peaceful and more amenable
to American leadership, benefits the US economically, saves American lives,
prevents the rise of extremists, and has contributed directly to American defense
in both the lives and treasure of our NATO allies.

His
op-ed is excellent and should be read in full; no brief excerpt here can do it
justice. The apt title of McFaul's piece is "NATO Is an Alliance, Not A
Protection Racket." It can be read here.

"Estonia,
along with its Baltic (and NATO) partners, Lithuania, and Latvia, were until
the early 1990s part of the Soviet Union. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, were, likewise, member of the
Soviet-allied Warsaw Pact, NATO's communist counterpart. When the Soviet Union
collapsed, these former communist countries looked to the West for new
alliances. All are EU and NATO members. Trump's remarks are causing jitters
because the memory of the Soviet Union is still fresh in these states, and they
are increasingly wary at Russia's muscle-flexing under President Vladimir
Putin. (Trump on Putin: 'He's been complimentary of me. I think Putin and I
will get along very well.')"

A NATO
official reminded Trump that NATO came to the defense of the US after 9/11, and
soldiers from NATO countries died in US wars.

"Referring
to the critical 'Article 5' of the treaty which deems an attack on one member
state an attack on all, a NATO official told news.com.au: 'The only time
Article 5 was invoked was after 9/11 in defence of the US, when NATO sent AWACS
to patrol American skies and deployed a third of the troops in Afghanistan for
over a decade, where over one thousand soldiers from non-US Allies and partners
gave their lives.'"

The
National Review reminded its readers of what NATO is and what it has
accomplished.

"For
the past 70 years, U.S. presidents have recognized that defending our national
interests requires using America's overwhelming economic and military power to
support like-minded allies. This vision of a U.S.-led global-security order,
perhaps best embodied by the NATO alliance, has not only prevented major state
conflict since World War II, but has also supported a global system of trade
that has led to unparalleled prosperity for all…

"Trump's
comments betray his deep ignorance of Russia's aggression against the West. As
retired Air Force General Philip Breedlove, former head of U.S. European
Command, notes, 'Moscow is determined to reestablish what it considers its
rightful sphere of influence, undermine NATO, and reclaim its great-power
status.' Furthermore, he says, 'the foundation of any strategy in Europe must
be the recognition that Russia poses an enduring existential threat to the
United States, its allies, and the international order.'

It is
even more important to note that the Baltic nations have, in fact, fulfilled
their obligations to the United States. Despite their small size and limited
military power, these countries were part of the U.S.-led coalitions in
Afghanistan and Iraq, devoting hundreds of troops to each theater throughout
the course of these missions. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania still maintain a
presence in Afghanistan today, after the end of the coalition's combat mission
at the end of 2014. Donald Trump should be celebrating the Baltic states' brave
determination to stand with the United States — even when they were under no
obligation to do so — instead of flippantly dismissing it.'"

The
rest of this article is equally important. Please read it all here.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

In an interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump implied that he would not protect NATO's Eastern European allies if menaced by Russia. See Washington Post coverage here and New York Times coverage here.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Below please find my 1997 article about the Golem legend, including analysis of Elie Wiesel's retelling. Thank God for Elie Wiesel's work. May his memory be a blessing.

Golem
as Gentile, Golem as Sabra:

An
Analysis of the Manipulation of Stereotypes

of
Self and Other

in
Literary Treatments of a Legendary Jewish Figure

New
York Folklore
XXIII:1-4 (1997):39-64.

Introduction

The golem
is a Jewish folkloric character. It is a manmade, man-like creature, usually
made of soil and approximately life size. There have been many golem stories;
this paper will focus on literary treatments by H. Leivick, Isaac Bashevis
Singer, and Elie Wiesel. All three are reworkings of the plot of a 1909
manuscript popularly attributed to Yudl Rosenberg. In Rosenberg's work an
historical figure of sixteenth-century Prague, Rabbi Loew (a.k.a. Liva, Lowi,
Leib, Low, Levi), creates a golem to protect Jews from a blood libel.[1]

Representations
of the golem changed over time; this paper argues that these changes reflect
dovetailing stereotypes of Jews and Gentiles in Eastern Europe as well as the
changing position many Jews came to take in response to attack.
"Golem" was a Yiddish expression for "clumsy fool" [2]and was
"used affectionately as a synonym for 'dummy.'"[3]
Early in the legend's development, golems were little more than human-shaped
sculptures of mud. In this century's literary treatments, golems changed from
mute to capable of speech, from neuter to sexual, from passive to active,
innocuous to dangerous. As the golem story is reworked, authors reveal less
anxiety about and more confidence in their hero's violence, immediacy, and
divorce from Jewish tradition.

Authors'
struggles with the golem as a new and stereotypically "gentile"
Jewish defensive force parallel concerns Jewish thinkers voiced about sabras,
or native born Israelis, the sabras' perceived spontaneity, divorce from
tradition, and their martial response to attack. This is not the first time
this comparison has been made. In A
Psychohistory of Zionism, Jay Gonen writes, "Zionism. This new
political force, this new Golem, if you will, offered similar protection."
[4] Gonen does
not develop the metaphor; this paper will attempt to do so.

Golems:
A Brief History

It is
assumed that the golem legend was influenced by and has influenced other
similar manmade, man-like creature stories in folklore and literature. Moshe
Idel, an Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism, theorizes that Jews may have originally
been inspired in the development of the golem legend by the ancient Egyptian
practice of placing tiny statues in coffins, and the belief that these statues
were animated through magical inscriptions placed on their torsos.[5] Rabbi Ben
Zion Bokser claims that golem legends may have indirectly inspired Goethe in
his work on the Faust legend.[6] Other
creative artists whose work may have been influenced by the golem legend
include Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein,
and Karel Čapek, Czech author of the play R.U.R.
, source of the English word "robot."[7]